Recently read an interesting article by columnist Cheryl Costa on the Syracuse New Times website listing the Top 25 cities for UFO sightings across the U.S., from 2001— 2015. Phoenix, AZ tops the carts with 929 sightings and Kansas City comes in last at an embarrassing (to the Chamber of Commerce, anyway) 294 reported glimpses of unidentified flying objects. The irony here is that Syracuse doesn’t even make the list. That’s just shameful.

On a happier note, Seattle, home of ME, sits smugly on the list at #3, with 616 sightings. It would’ve been around 700, but the UFO hotline got tired of me calling in every blinking light in the sky. So what if I live by two airports (Boeing Field/Sea-Tac Airport)? Maybe they were planes…or maybe they were extraterrestrial spaceships looking to goof with my brain pan. Still a valid call on my part.

Other UFO hotspot cities include Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and Manhattan. So if you live in one of those places, keep watching the skies. If you don’t, then don’t. Not up for craning your neck skyward for hours on end? Lower your head to TV level and watch for these upcoming horror/sci-fi movies, which, for the most part, are identifiable…

MINDBLOWN (available now/VOD)
“A team of telekinetics — code-named Project Mindblown — has been secretly assembled in a high-tech facility. Their minds have the power to shake the Earth — or bring rain to drought-starved areas. They’ve been told their abilities will be used to do good for humanity. But when evidence suggests that the group has been tricked into causing destruction in U.S. cities, one team member goes rogue, racing against time to uncover a deadly conspiracy.”

Man, it’d be so cool to have the power to make things shake and quake. For instance, you could walk into a glass and ceramics novelty gift shop, fart really loud, and then make the whole room shake an off-balanced washer and/or dryer. Then say something like, “Wow, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that fourth burrito…” Hilarity, I tell you.

TOTEM (October 31, 2017/VOD)
“A teen must resort to extreme measures to protect her family from a supernatural entity.”

Kind of an oxymoron — aren’t teens already supernatural entities? So what extreme measures is this teen gonna resort to? Making body-shaming taunts and posting embarrassing photos of the entity on social media? Or maybe she’ll trick it into smearing itself with glitter lipstick so it’ll look totally uncool at the school dance.

THE ENVELOPE (November 30, 2017/Russia)
“A strange envelope is delivered to an architect bureau by mistake. Igor, a driver, gets the task to bring it to the right address. From that moment his life becomes a string of paranormal events. The cursed letter invades Igor’s life and leads him to a mysterious addressee.”

They’re still naming horror movie characters “Igor”? That’s like giving Tom Cruise the name “Jack” in all his movies. As for the strange envelope, it’s probably a rent increase notice. (Last one I got was covered in frowny-face stickers.)

THE CRESCENT (2017/2018)
“A mother and her toddler son struggle to find spiritual healing after an unexpected death in the family. All the while, a mysterious force from the sea threatens to tear their souls apart.”

I bet you anything the mysterious force from the sea is a clam. Those things are loaded with terror. When you crack one open, it either looks like an alien face-hugger or a freshly blown nose. Or both.

Been on Mufon.com (Mutual UFO Network) again lately, a site that among other things documents UFO sightings in real time. Apparently, while I was watching episodes of Supergirl, iZombie, The Flash and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night, my neighborhood was being buzzed by no less than seven UFOS. That my neighborhood is situated along the flight path to the Sea-Tac Airport is but a mere coincidence.

UFOs cruising the hood and they didn’t have the decency to honk and wave going by? Speaking of things you may or may not to be oblivious of, here’s a few upcoming horror/sci-fi flicks (or “movies”) that may or may not require your attention…

DOBAARA: SEE YOUR EVIL (June 2, 2017)
“Natasha and Kabeer Merchant come across a strange mirror while dealing with the death of their parents.”

A haunted mirror story, this one being from Bollywood and based on Oculus (2013) to the point of copyright infringement. There have been dozens of haunted mirror movies through the ages. And they all owe their plots to The Picture of Dorian Grey (1945), the story of a cursed portrait painting. They didn’t have mirrors back in the ’40s, so people had to paint picture selfies to see what they looked like. Problem is, if you had hot dog mustard on your upper lip at the time of the painting… You can see why mirrors had to be invented.

AWAKENING THE ZODIAC (June 9, 2017/VOD/Limited)
“A down-on-their-luck couple discovers a serial killer’s film reels. They decide to take the law into their own hands, risking everything for the chance at a $100,000 reward. It isn’t long until they find themselves in the killer’s lethal cross-hairs.”

This one’s based on the real-life Zodiac Killer, who back in the late ‘60s, killed a bunch of people in California and was never caught. Things might have ended differently if he tried doing his dirty deeds in Gotham City.

VIOLENT STARR (2017)
“Peace in the galaxy — or whats left of it — is crumbling. The evil god-like creature, the GODMICHAEL, a giant head floating in space and his evil minions are swarming out to eliminate creatures and races that the Godmichael deems “unworthy.”

Godmichael. Sounds like a name for a Christian metal band. As for the giant floating head, been done — in 1974. What, you haven’t seen Zardoz? If you wanna see a giant floating head, start there. Or look in the mirror, you stoners — ha!

STILL/BORN (2017/2018)
“Mary, a new mother who lost one of her twins in childbirth. While she struggles with the loss of one of her children, she starts to suspect something sinister is after her surviving child — a supernatural entity that has chosen her child and will stop at nothing to take it from her.”

Evil follows kids around like ice cream trucks. The horror movie theme of a supernatural entity taking kids away from their parents is nothing new, though. This was the bone structure of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Omen franchise (1976 — 2006) and It (1990). A similar one to watch is Stephen King’s Storm of the Century (1999). It’s like they combined evil with a bad weather report. Neat!